Breakdown of Это старый двигатель, который работал ещё в девятнадцатом веке.
это
this / it is
старый
old
работать
to work
в
on / during (a time period)
Questions & Answers about Это старый двигатель, который работал ещё в девятнадцатом веке.
Why is the relative pronoun in the form который?
Который translates to "which" or "that". It must match the gender and number of the noun it refers back to. Since двигатель (engine) is masculine and singular, we use the masculine singular form который. It is in the Nominative case here because it acts as the subject of the second half of the sentence: the engine is the thing that worked (работал).
I learned that ещё means "still" or "more." What does it mean here?
While ещё often means "still" or "more," it is also used with past time expressions to emphasize how long ago something happened. In this sentence, ещё в девятнадцатом веке translates naturally to "as far back as" or "back in" the nineteenth century.
Why are the endings -ом on девятнадцатом and -е on веке?
This is the Prepositional case. In Russian, when you say that an event happened in a specific century, year, or month, you use the preposition в followed by the Prepositional case. The phrase девятнадцатый век (nineteenth century) changes to в девятнадцатом веке.
Двигатель ends in a soft sign. How do we know it is masculine?